little devil darling
by QueenPersephoneofHades
Summary: Thomas Connor is not a religious man, not a believer in many things, but he does believe, here and now, that this thing he accidentally helped create is not something any mortal man should be messing around with.


Mr. Drew doesn't invite Thomas along for the grand ceremony to herald the Ink Machine's first awakening on Wednesday night, which suits Thomas just fine; even if he'd been ordered to attend, he wouldn't have gone back to that studio at night for all the extra pay in the world.

He's spent more than his fair share of sleepless nights holed up in the dim, flickering lights, all alone, tweaking and readjusting the damned thing over and over. Trying to bring this 'great technical marvel' Mr. Drew had clumsily designed to life in a way that actually worked less on belief and prayers and more on engineering and logic. He's not exactly eager to return unless the sun is up and there are at least a handful of other employees already there, thank you very much.

So, Thomas isn't there the night the machine finally works, but he arrives the Thursday morning afterwards to see the results after a lengthy, half-coherent phone call with Mr. Drew, who'd been too excited to get half his words out.

He comes in a couple hours early because at least Mr. Drew promised a bit of overtime, and he _is_ a bit curious to see what exactly resulted from the boss man's special experiment. But when he enters the chamber where the infamous Machine is glugging away gallons of the studio's precious ink, Thomas is suddenly really wishing he'd taken that vacation Allison had suggested.

"What in the _hell_?"

The question kind of slips out without Thomas really meaning it to, because _Christ Almighty_ , there is a hulking, dripping _thing_ lurking just in Mr. Drew's shadow, and for a moment Thomas is afraid to make any sudden moves, attract its attention, but his voice seems to have already done that, if the eerie way it turns its malformed head towards him is any indication.

Thomas can't help but swallow hard as a goopy, unsettling grin slowly tilts curiously to the side, like it's watching him, but before he can start retreating out the door the way he came Mr. Drew finally spins away from the Machine.

"Isn't he wonderful?!" Thomas has never seen Mr. Drew so ecstatic before, face alight with a joy that had all but faded in the last few years of the studio's decline into bankruptcy. He's standing up tall and straight as he can without leaning on his cane, like he's trying to appear as large as the thing standing behind him. "I knew you had it in you, Mr. Connor! Your redesigns really did the trick, my boy! It stopped clogging and accepted the model just like you said it would!"

The compliments practically fly over Thomas' head, as most of his attention is fastened to the monstrosity Mr. Drew seems to be ignoring rather masterfully.

"Sir," Thomas coughs, because _God,_ what the _hell_ \- "What- uh, what did you-?"

"Oh, he's just _marvelous_ , isn't he?!" Mr. Drew turns right around and beams up at the oozing monster like it's the best Christmas present he's ever seen, and Thomas feels a chill go down his spine when the thing just angles its head down and continues grinning back even though from here it doesn't look like it can properly see, what with its eyes being nonexistent. "He's just a prototype, but he came right out on the first try! I didn't even have to reset the levers or anything; he crawled right out after the sketch was put in!"

"'He?'" Thomas asks weakly. There's a lot more he should be saying – hell, there's plenty he should be _screaming_ at this point – but his brain is refusing to cooperate. Words are completely failing him, because his eyes can barely comprehend what they're seeing.

Mr. Drew cheers a bit, shaking his cane around in excitement, and if he were a younger man he might have broken into a happy jig.

"Yes! Bendy, of course!" he says, and.

What?

Is that what this is supposed to be?

Looming just behind Mr. Drew's shoulder, the thing sways a little bit, like a sudden breeze might make it topple over and crush him.

Thomas musters something that might resemble an understanding smile, and backs out of the room as slowly as he can, trying not to look like he's running away.

Mr. Drew hardly seems to notice his departure, ecstatically circling back around the Machine, chanting words that aren't even English and waving his arms around like a loon.

Back where it had been left, the thing that might be Bendy the Dancing Demon hadn't taken its attention off of Thomas, head still tilted to watch his exit, still smiling smiling smiling.

Once he reaches the corner, Thomas gives up on any pretenses and books it out of there like a bat out of hell.

He can still feel the thing's invisible eyes on him all the way out of the studio.

* * *

While the experiment might seem like a success in some ways, in many ways it most definitely is not.

The strange, towering husk is almost nothing like the little devil darling it's supposed to be.

Sure, it's got the iconic horns and the unnaturally wide grin of its cartoon counterpart, but that's about where the similarities end.

This thing is tall, unnaturally so, like its body is made out of taffy that's been stretched out too long. It's horns nearly brush the ceiling and its arms are nearly as long as it's body. One hand has the glove reminiscent of the real Bendy, while the other is just an ugly, black paw, fingers jagged and curled slightly like claws.

And it drips _everywhere_ , continuously oozing puddles and streaks of dark ink all across the ground wherever it goes, staining the floor just as much as all the damned burst pipes always do.

"It's a damn _menace!_ " Sammy Lawrence snarls at lunch time, voice booming through the breakroom like it usually does when he's in a terrible mood and he needs everyone else to know. "Fuckin' _freak_ thinks it can wander into my studio and-! There's ink all over the damned _walls!_ How the hell am I supposed to write a damned thing when half my papers are soaked darker than Satan's soul?!"

Thomas, picking wordlessly at his lukewarm tuna sandwich, watches Eddie and Marge and Frankie all nod seriously in agreement, and can't help pursing his lips.

The animators and half the rest of the staff are practically in an uproar about the thing, which has meandered its way all across the studio and back in the day and a half since it was brought into existence. At first, they were too creeped out by its' appearance to say much against Mr. Drew, but ever since it started seriously disrupting people's work with its random disappearing-reappearing through walls act, they'd been getting a little more vocal about their displeasure in private, where neither the boss man or the thing in question could hear them.

Sammy looks about five seconds away from storming out of the room and demanding a word with Joey, and honestly Thomas is almost tempted to let him; if there's anyone in this place that can kick up enough of a storm to actually get Mr. Drew's attention, it's Sammy Lawrence and his sharp tongue and even sharper temper.

But the same, creeping feeling of being watched is still on him, even now, hours later and with the thing not even in the room, and Thomas isn't feeling up to pressing his luck right now.

"You managed just fine when the pipes burst, yeah?" he dares to ask, raising an eyebrow at Sammy's outraged sputtering.

This could become a nice, distracting argument, but even thinking about defending the monster is killing Thomas's appetite, and he shoves back from the table with a scowl.

"Up yours, Connor!" Sammy hollers after him as he heads out into the hallway.

Thomas waves over his shoulder and skirts around a fresh ink puddle without looking.

* * *

Thomas gets called in to deal with another burst pipe in the animator's department, and ain't it just his great luck that he finds the thing standing right in the middle of the room, hunched over a bit to accommodate for its massive height and the low ceiling, smiling smiling smiling in that creepy way it does as it seemingly watches Mr. Drew with poor Frankie at the man's desk.

"It needs to be completely on model this time, Mr. Chambers," Mr. Drew's voice is poisonously sweet as he loomed ominously over the animator, expression calm but the look in his eyes bordering on murderous as he stared Frankie down.

Thomas winces in sympathy as Frankie gestures uselessly at whatever is on his desk, face set in a stubborn scowl that'll probably get him fired.

"Sir, ya said so yourself; the sketches I gave you yesterday _were_ on model! Those Bendy's looked like every other cartoon we've ever released, they were _perfect,_ so I don't see how it's _my_ fault the-" he coughed a bit, glanced at the shadow standing right in the middle of the room, and grimaced. "-the _model_ your Machine spat out is as deformed as it is! Maybe you should be taking a look at-!"

"The Machine worked exactly as it was supposed to!" Mr. Drew snapped, and Thomas pretends very hard like he's studying the leaking pipe he's over here to fix, because the Machine _was_ working just fine when he'd been working on it, but that was back before all the weird voodoo shit was thrown in, and he's not sure he wants to see what would happen if he decided to mention that.

Another chill goes shooting up his spine, and Thomas glances over his shoulder to find the thing slowly drifting closer to the wall he's working next to as both Frankie and the boss man continue their little discussion.

His entire body stiffens at the thing's approach, and Thomas is just contemplating how much trouble he's likely to get in if he reaches for his wrench and takes a swing at it, but he doesn't need to worry; the thing drifts farther and farther to the right until it reaches the corner opposite Thomas. It hits the wall, and Thomas half expects it to phase through the wood like it's been doing all damn day, but instead it just sort of leans listlessly against it, unmoving for a long minute, until its form slowly crumples up into an awkward, misshapen ball, like a pouting child in timeout.

The comparison does nothing for Thomas's nerves, and neither does the sudden _thud_ and the sound of paper ripping coming from Frankie's desk.

"Just do better this time, Mr. Chambers!" Mr. Drew is still smiling that unhappy smile as he walks away, limping heavily even with his cane, not even looking back when Frankie throws up his hands in frustration and proceeds to rip up even more papers from his desk.

"Whatever you say, sir," Frankie mutters sourly, gathering up his ink pot and a few folders before stalking out after the boss, expression thunderous.

The door slams closed after the duo's dramatic exit, and Thomas is left with the horrifying realization that he is alone in here, and that thing is also very much still here.

Ruined scraps of paper float gently off Frankie's desk after it's owner's hasty departure, and they scatter a bit across the floor.

In the corner of the room, the thing has started to rock back and forth. A disturbing choking sound is emanating from the back of its throat, and Thomas can feel gooseflesh rising up all along his arms as it thumps it's head gently against the wall with a gentle _splat-splat,_ staining the wall with ink.

If Thomas didn't know any better, he'd say it was crying, curled up like a frightened kid and making itself as small as possible.

"Would you stop that?"

He doesn't mean to talk to it. He doesn't _want_ to talk to it, because it's _not a fucking person_ , but it's crying and he doesn't know _why_.

Thomas's throat rasped, voice curiously strained for some reason. His tone was a lot quieter than he'd meant it to be, but if he tried to go any louder he might really start screaming. "You're Drew's special little project, ya hear? You ain't got nothin' to cry about. Stop that."

A half-finished sketch of what looks like Boris the Wolf lands on Thomas's shoe, and he shakes it off with a scowl.

The thing chokes a little louder, and Thomas gets up and grabs his toolbox and walks back out of the room. Someone else can deal with the leak for now. He's really not in the mood.

* * *

Allison finds him, after work is over for the day and he's still packing up his things. She bursts into the room like she'd run all the way here from the recording studio, entire body trembling like a leaf in a storm and eyes haunted.

He doesn't ask, just opens his arms and holds onto her when she falls into him with a gasp.

"I said 'hi' to it," she whispers, voice so hoarse he can barely hear it even when her chin is pressed into his shoulder. "It came up behind me, and I wasn't thinking, and I said 'hi' because I thought it was Sammy and it- I thought-"

She sobs hard, can't speak for a moment, and Thomas can't do anything but tighten his arms around her, ignore the angry fire banking in his gut as she shakes apart.

"It said- I thought it said ' _Hi Alice_ ', and the voice-! The sounds it made- oh, _god_ , Tom, that's _not human,_ whatever it is, and it's- it's so _sad-!_ "

Words fail her, and Allison buries her face into his neck and cries her heart out.

Above them, Thomas listens to ink flow sluggishly through the pipes. It never sounded so much like a moaning voice, before.

* * *

Thomas hands in his resignation letter the Monday after a long weekend of thinking.

Marching back out of the studio with his head held high, he ignores the stares of his former colleagues and keeps his shaking hands balled into fists at his sides.

The ink thing that might be Bendy wanders past him on the way out, face still dripping inky tears and smiling smiling smiling all the while.

* * *

 **A/N: Happy Halloween, dear readers!  
~Persephone**


End file.
